This invention pertains to a strip of collated nails for use with a pneumatically powered, combustion-powered, or other rapidly acting, nail-driving tool.
This invention provides a surprisingly simple solution to a particularly vexing problem, viz., the flagging problem, particularly in a context of ring-shanked, threaded, barbed, and other special-purpose nails.
Flagging occurs when a fragment of wire, paper tape, or other collating material becomes caught under the head of a nail driven from a stack of collated nails into a workpiece by a rapidly acting, nail-driving tool. Besides the fragment being unacceptable from an aesthetic standpoint, the fragment prevents the nail from being driven fully into the workpiece and can present a safety hazard if the fragment flies off the workpiece. The flagging problem is exacerbated with siding nails, roofing nails, dry-wall nails, and other special-purpose nails that remain visible.
Many special-purpose nails for use in rapidly acting, nail-driving tools are ring-shanked, i.e., provided with axial arrays of annular or spiral rings on their shanks, which have cylindrical portions between their heads and those arrays of such rings.
Some prior collating methods are exemplified in Sturtevant U.S. Pat. No. 159,777, which discloses interwoven metallic strands collating sole-fastenings of different types, some of which appear to have annular rings on their shanks, Langas et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,276,576, which discloses adhesive tapes collating common nails having full heads, Young et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,759, which discloses swaged wires collating nails with D-shaped, so-called clipped heads, and Shelton et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,042, which discloses plastic elements collating nails with D-shaped heads.